Islamic State Committed Ethnic Cleansing in Iraq, Amnesty Says

Sept. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Amnesty International said it had
fresh evidence that militants from an al-Qaeda breakaway group
are carrying out a “wave of ethnic cleansing” against
minorities in northern Iraq.

The human rights group said in a report today that the
Islamic State had systematically targeted Iraqi Christians and
members of the Yazidi religious minority following the capture
of large swathes of northern Iraq by militants. The plight of
thousands of Yazidis, who fled their homes in the northern town
of Sinjar, prompted an international relief effort and U.S.
airstrikes.

“The Islamic State is carrying out despicable crimes and
has transformed rural areas of Sinjar into blood-soaked killing
fields in its brutal campaign to obliterate all trace of non-Arabs and non-Sunni Muslims,” said Donatella Rovera, Amnesty
International’s senior crisis response adviser currently in
northern in Iraq.

The militants have declared an Islamic caliphate in areas
of Iraq and Syria that they control. Thousands have died in the
fighting in both countries, and over 1.6 million people have
been displaced in Iraq, according to the International
Organization for Migration.